The Real Food Blog

I never was much of a cook, but I always have loved food and especially got very interested in all the veggie and exotic global and new age foods such as kombucha and kimchi. Since having children I also have had to cook a lot more, which has boosted my repertoire of dishes that I can just about produce in an edible format. Since we launched the Hub we now have the lovely veg box available plus all the other goodies that fall into it from the cybershelf. There is basically all this food, and two hungry boys tugging my trousers ‘mum, I’m hungry’ or *ma ma ma smack smack* as the little one expresses it. So I have to produce something.

This blog is about Real Food for real people with realistic fridge content who haven’t given up cooking for a ready dish in the supermarket although they are living the same 21st century fast-lane life as everyone else.

My husband is a mushroom grower, and we end up with quite a lot of rye grain lying around. He uses it to feed mycelium, but I have noticed how easily it sprouts! So I decided to sprout a small jar of rye grain and ended up with a very big bowl of fluffy sprouts which tasted very sweet, bit stringy, but quite lovely. “stir fry’ I thought. Quickly this thought turned into ‘spring rolls’. Now that’s where I went out of my depth….

I look up a recipe for spring roll batter. I only have wholemeal flour. On the recipe page the author exclaims that whole wheat wont be good enough for spring rolls as it tears when folded. I ignore it.

I mix a nice batter, I am quite proud of it some how. So smooth. I add it to a not too hot pan as instructed from the recipe, and manage to make some not-so-thin spring roll pan cakes.

I cook up the sprouts in garlic and gi… I realise we are out of fresh ginger. I add a large teaspoon of chinese 5-spice paste from a jar in the cupboard.

I have a moment of radical amazement staring at the pattern of a cut-through organic purple cabbage, before I chop it up and add it to the wok.

The stir-fry has started smelling a bit like christmas and I realise I have added too much 5-spice. Yuck. I try to cover it up with soy sauce. It doesn’t work.

I try and fold up a spring roll, but realise there must be some technique. Sure enough, online I get all -too much- help I need. I choose the first and best folding technique and start making my spring rolls. It sort of works, they do tear quite a bit, but I end up cooking something that looks like spring rolls in that wholesome sort of way. The frying has concealed the worst of the clove taste so I serve it up for my family panel during a game of Top Trumps. Son gets annoyed with the chop stick and wont eat any. James is very polite and pulls out the chilisauce. I give myself a pass with a medium Gross Out score only….